A THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD Buddhist statue taken from Tibet in 1938 by a Nazi SS team was carved from a meteorite.

In a paper published in an academic journal, German and Austrian researchers recounted an extraordinary tale where archaeology, the Third Reich and cosmic treasure are intertwined like an Indiana Jones movie.

Called the "Iron Man" because of the high content of iron in its rock, the 24cm-high statue was brought to Germany by an expedition led by Ernst Schaefer, a zoologist and ethnologist.

Backed by SS chief Heinrich Himmler and heading a team whose members are all believed to have been SS, Schaefer roamed Tibet in 1938 and 1939 to search for the origins of Aryanism, the notion of racial superiority that underpinned Nazism.

Weighing 10.6kg, the statue features the Buddhist god Vaisravana seated, with the palm of his right hand outstretched and pointing downwards.

Chemical analysis shows that the rock from which it was carved came from a meteorite. The rock survived a long trip through the Solar System and the destructive friction with the atmosphere when it collided with Earth.

It is a particularly rare kind of meteorite called an ataxite, which has iron and high contents of nickel, according to the study, published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

"The statue was chiseled from an iron meteorite, from a fragment of the Chinga meteorite which crashed into the border areas between Mongolia and Siberia about 15,000 years ago," said investigator Elmar Buchner of Stuttgart University.

"While the first debris was officially discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors, we believe that this individual meteorite fragment was collected many centuries before."

The exact dating of the carving cannot be established accurately, but its style links it to the pre-Buddhist Bon culture of the 11th century.

Vaisravana was the Buddhist god-king of the North, also known as Jambhala in Tibet.

How the Schaefer expedition came across the statue is unclear, but the big appeal is likely to have been a large swastika, symbolising good fortune in Buddhism, carved on its chest.

Once the statue arrived in Munich, it became part of a private collection and only became available for study by Mr Buchner following an auction in 2009.

Other meteorites have become incorporated into religious worship. The holy Black Stone in the Kaaba in Mecca is believed to be a stony meteorite.

"The Iron Man statue is the only known illustration of a human figure to be carved into a meteorite, which means we have nothing to compare it to when assessing value," said Mr Buchner.

"Its origins alone may value it at $US20,000 ($19,000). However, if our estimation of its age is correct and it is nearly a thousand years old it could be invaluable."

The prophecy come true! The Super-Humans (uttari-manussa) are coming to establish a New Order on Earth! A new incarnation of Hitler who has fulfilled all his Parami to become the Wheel-turning Ruler of the world:

IRON SKY

Set in 2018, during a mission to the moon astronauts discover that the German Nazi Party have established a base on the moon where they have been living since the end of World War II. The Nazis have plans to return to the Earth and take power by invading the planet with an armada of spaceships.

Gives a lot of food for a thicket of wrong views, maybe there is actually really no need as there is planty brushwood. Don't know if that is helpful at least. We come accross many ideas if we are bored... It's somehow difficult to get a grip on it, and also to do not infect others (which is sometimes a good additional motivation for effort).

People of all kind love to be ariya. A walk on the egde? Or simply rules?

Just that! *smile*...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaVSMVMMWBBTBHTWTBTMy Page

Actually there is much danger when Ariya an Ariya meet each other. It would be naive to think that silly people would not be able to construct there ego-centered philosophy out of it, but that is how worldy dangerous movements come into being.It's not just a Nazi phenomen (which took much inspirations form Asian philosophies and I am sure even from Buddhism), its all over the world constant, and also today in SEAsia very present. Ther it is called mostly "People who have merits" movement, a believe which is similare to a special cast like we find in Hindu philosophy. Sometimes also the belive that having merits means that it is something inherent or given. Such tendencies are along all leader classes and consortias. Even amoung Bhikkhus it is not excludeable. Conceit out of virtue or knowledge is not undangerous, not to speak about the low kind of pride which is amoung kin, race or birth.

Republican politicans for example often very attached to the Boddhisattva idea mixed with some "Ariya"-conceit. But similar arising comes amoung the social-Ariya on the other wing. Coming somehow together is how Social-Nationalism (or worldly Ariyanhood) comes into being.

The other sideproblem which Bhikkhus easily face is to be misunderstood out of the Ariya trauma especial in countries involved in the II World war. So it needs a lot of teaching and understanding.

Just that! *smile*...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_